96 replies to this topic

[Dino Banino]

Davers, on 24 August 2016 - 02:49 AM, said:

LoL, the one time everyone agrees with PGI you have to go and take the opposite stance.

If you can't realize that having new players log off and wait for repairs is the worst idea possible...

R&R would require a complete rebalancing of the entire game. Especially since things like DHS literally equals more Cbills per match.

R&R would not require a rebalanced game. It WOULD rebalance the game.

Don't you get it? R&R is the balancing factor the game needs. Actually, the game needs a lot of things, but R&R could be one of them.

Now, yes, maybe the original R&R didn't work. But that doesn't mean a different version of it can't be implemented successfully.

[MadcatX]

Archangel Dino, on 24 August 2016 - 07:41 AM, said:

R&R would not require a rebalanced game. It WOULD rebalance the game.

Don't you get it? R&R is the balancing factor the game needs. Actually, the game needs a lot of things, but R&R could be one of them.

Now, yes, maybe the original R&R didn't work. But that doesn't mean a different version of it can't be implemented successfully.

In faction warfare, if they eventually create a logistics system maybe R&R could be implemented there.

But using a game's economy for mechanical balance is simply poor game design at worst or a money grab PayToPlay model akin to WoT's R&R when you get high-tier tanks.

[dario03]

Archangel Dino, on 24 August 2016 - 07:41 AM, said:

R&R would not require a rebalanced game. It WOULD rebalance the game.

Don't you get it? R&R is the balancing factor the game needs. Actually, the game needs a lot of things, but R&R could be one of them.

Now, yes, maybe the original R&R didn't work. But that doesn't mean a different version of it can't be implemented successfully.

A version of R&R in a single player version of the game sure.
But the best change they ever did to R&R was the last change...when they removed it.

[Johnny Z]

Repair and rearm done right is what Star Citizen is selling in theory, and I think that's why it gets trolled heavily at times on this game. I'm not sure if I like the direction Star Citizen is going to go, but the dream of what Star Citizen could be is what repair and rearm needs to be in this game.

A Mechwarrior setting out into the stars to have an epic adventure, fight in a great war and great battles, see new places, and it takes some resource management to do that.

Alt farmers, gold farmers, match fixers, anyone else cheesey, need not reply to this topic.

Edited by Johnny Z, 24 August 2016 - 09:58 AM.

[Mechwarrior1441491]

It was said by the devs that you may even have to play with damaged mechs for a time. haha

Faction play repair. Pay the costs for instant repair after a match. Your units repair bay can repair mechs in between attack phases for free.

Solved.

Edited by Mechwarrior1441491, 24 August 2016 - 10:27 AM.

[patataman]

Pjwned, on 23 August 2016 - 05:19 PM, said:

How would you deal with poor, inexperienced players using crappy mechs getting demolished by rich veterans using godly mechs? I'm not expecting a good answer but maybe either of you can humor me.

You don't. That's the reason to create ELO first and PSR later. You want newbies playing with and versus newbies and veterans playing with and versus veterans. If PSR is not safe enough, you can always create Tier 6 and only allow newbies (sub 100 matches played?) there.

And there are several posibilities to improve the game for a new player beyond the MM. A general chat for example, so they can ask questions while in the mechlab (what should i buy as a first mech?) and make new friends (MWO is a lonely place when you start playing). Or a mentor system so the veterans can pass their knowledge to newbies.

RAM, on 23 August 2016 - 08:01 PM, said:

R&R worked and worked well. Unfortunately people are lazy and it is easier to whine than to get better.

Risk vs Reward: your tricked out Assault provides an advantage and if you fail should have a disadvantage.

To tell the truth it had flaws, like allowing to deploy without repairing your mech and getting free ammo, but the general idea was good imho. If you wanted to drive the shiny atlas you had to be sure to get a lot of damage from it, or save money by playing with more economic mechs.

I joined the game like one week before the end of CB, with the veterans having all the cool toys, knockdowns still in the game and premade vs pug matches everywhere. It was possible to make money, because in that week playing with the trials i made enough for a K2 and to try several builds for it. At the end of CB there was a wipe, and then i started again, with a raven 4x iirc, then upgraded to a catapult again and purchased all the variants with c-bills. And i had fun, or i wouldn't be here.

RAM, on 23 August 2016 - 08:01 PM, said:

eSport > Sim

Sadly that's the root of many problems in MWO. PGI wants to have everyone happy, but there are two main groups of players with oposite desires. I think supporting both groups is possible, for example dealing with that like war thunder, having an 'arcade mode' without things like R&R, knockdowns, delayed convergence, pretty much like how the QP part of the game is today, and a 'simulation mode' with all those things that many players hate but others like me love.

[Mechwarrior1441491]

Just like stock mode, add collision as an option for lobby games.

[Lightfoot]

Bottom line some players exploited the R&R by using no armor except for the CT, making more CBills for doing nothing than the top players in the game.

[RAM]

Kmieciu, on 24 August 2016 - 12:36 AM, said:

Sorry but no. R&R did not work well at all. Remember "welfare ammo"? 75% of the ammo was replenished for free. I just took 10 tonnes of LRM ammo and never payed for reloads. Just dropped with 1350 missiles instead of 1800. Engine and weapon repair? Why bother? They worked the same, no matter how badly damaged they were. I just repaired torso armor and structure on my Atlas and rained LRMs while other players tanked for me. Made insane amounts of C-Bills. A couple of million every match.

No need to apologize for being wrong. Not to mention that most of your example is out dated and incorrect in back then.

R&R certainly could be better, but it did work.


RAM
ELH

[Mechwarrior1441491]

With the inflated amount of C-Bills we have compared to that time, I think it would be fine. MWO needs some kind of Risk Vs Reward. A sense of NOT wanting to head rush into the enemy.

The engagement was different, slower, more methodical than it is now.

Hell, when Solaris, if Solaris is given to us, PLEASE give us a Pink Slip mode. Let the destroyed components in a match stay destroyed. Repairing mech weapons, engine, equipment. GIVE ME SOME PINK SLIP ROBITS!

[Kyrie]

Archangel Dino, on 23 August 2016 - 08:00 PM, said:

I didn't read the entire thread, but truly interesting. I love how invested you were into that thread. If MWO is going to go forward, it's going to be people like you that bring it forward.

Thanks, I really appreciate that! Lately its gotten me down a bit, thinking about all that has failed to materialize in that 4 year interval. Back then, in 2012, everything seemed possible -- and those who were participating in the threads that were active back then were envisioning how awesome the CW pillar could become.

Now, unfortunately, all that is left for me is quick-play. What PGI has delivered as "FP" is just not appealing to me, its not what I was hoping for. Its not even the issues with the action-game that bother me, although I have to admit I dislike the maps and game-modes intensely. What really bugs me is that PGI never implemented the Houses of the InnerSphere, never created the economy and overall strategy that I had assumed PGI would take the opportunity to build on -- what was done in 1992 and the very early 2000s in the EA reboot of MPBT.

PGI unfortunately overlooked the typical profile of the average Founder, and what they wanted in the game -- to judge by the amount of cash that was projectile-vomited at HBS for their BT game.

Edited by Kyrie, 24 August 2016 - 09:13 PM.

[MadcatX]

RAM, on 23 August 2016 - 08:01 PM, said:

R&R worked and worked well. Unfortunately people are lazy and it is easier to whine than to get better.

Risk vs Reward: your tricked out Assault provides an advantage and if you fail should have a disadvantage.

eSport > Sim

I hate repair systems in games that force you to do 1 of 3 things:
1) Get better so that you never lose your advantage
2) Have to grind money either arbitrarily like in most MMO's for fixing the higher-level gear or use something that costs less to repair your tricked-out mech.
3) Provide the ability to use real money to either instantly repair or make the grind a whole lot faster.

Now the first point, I won't discredit it's ability to provide incentive people to play better. On the flip side and as I'm sure everyone in the forums can agree on this, not everyone wants to get better, and that's not a bad thing. Most games have a combination of a decent MM/Ranking system and healthy playerbase to pit those of a greater skill level against each other and keep the casuals (aka "The Bads" around here) fighting each other.

Then you have the second point, which is "the grind within the grind". It's one thing to consider current gameplay a grind if your working towards something (say you're mastering a mech). But then if you have to add another level of grind by having to play something you really don't want to just because whatever you're currently grinding through needs repairs, well that's annoying as heck.

But the third point, that's what game devs implement repair for. In MMO's, grinding cash to repair end-game gear is a time sink to extend their end-game. In most F2P multiplayer titles across multiple genres, it's primary purpose in the game is as a money sink. I don't understand why people don't get that last part. This aspect is so prevalent in mobile gaming that you'd think people would pick up on it when it's happening, although to a lesser degree, on a PC F2P game. Feel free to call it "a balancing mechanic" or "a immersion mechanic". But the mechanic itself, it's either a time-sink or a money-sink and the primary purposes are is to provide incentive to pay real money to bypass it or have you arbitrarily waste your time because the game lacks enough content thus the devs give you busywork.

[invernomuto]

While I'd like to see some sort of R&R mechanic implemented in MWO, I have to admit that I would not have started the game if I had to pay for replacing destroyed components. I specifically asked to a friend of mine about that matter when he was trying to get me in MWO...
Engines are insanely costly (expecially XL) and still now in some matches I do very little damage (under 100) with ridiculous C-bills earned. If I have to replace each destroyed engine I'd probabily have 6-7 mechs after a year of MWO.
TL;DR: Leave R&R for higher tiers or specific gamemodes (FW).

[Mechwarrior1441491]

There are ways to put in R&R and even a riskier game mode or element that has no impact on the rest of the game and would even attract a type of PVP player which this game currently has nothing to offer them.

Actual combat repercussions. A risk in all your maneuvers beyond losing the match.

Free For All Solaris. All or Nothing mode. Destroyed components must be fully replaced. Put those large bank accounts to use. All new forms of achievements. Special decals unlocked etc. Lets bust up some of these pristine mechs rotting in our mechbays.

I would be fine with Clan weapons in IS rigs and likewise for clans with IS tech if they want. Restricted to Solaris. If it goes boom, it goes bye bye. Only available through salvage.

[Elizander]

We were using weaker mechs to bypass the tech repair penalty. People were going in with broken robots. I was personally running SHS/STD mechs even if they were not the optimal build just to farm and it certainly wasn't fun.

[Pjwned]

Archangel Dino, on 24 August 2016 - 07:41 AM, said:

R&R would not require a rebalanced game. It WOULD rebalance the game.

Don't you get it? R&R is the balancing factor the game needs. Actually, the game needs a lot of things, but R&R could be one of them.

It wouldn't achieve jack **** for balance, it would just separate the haves and have nots and players would quit en masse.

Quote

Now, yes, maybe the original R&R didn't work. But that doesn't mean a different version of it can't be implemented successfully.

Actually it pretty much does mean a different version can't be implemented successfully either, because the whole concept is fundamentally flawed for this game, if only because of the flagrant pay2win aspect alone.

The only way it could possibly be worthwhile is if the whole game was drastically reworked so that all players in every match start off on even ground and after every match all your c-bills would be reset, leaving you to spend/save as necessary. If you have a system where somebody has 2 billion c-bills and never has to worry about R&R while somebody with only 200k c-bills has to constantly worry about it, then it's complete garbage.

[Pjwned]

patataman, on 24 August 2016 - 10:40 AM, said:

You don't. That's the reason to create ELO first and PSR later. You want newbies playing with and versus newbies and veterans playing with and versus veterans. If PSR is not safe enough, you can always create Tier 6 and only allow newbies (sub 100 matches played?) there.

Well no, the reason to use ELO/PSR is to separate players based on their skill so that you don't have massive skill gaps between players in a given match. It's not used (by anybody with a brain at least) to separate people who have inferior gear because that causes all kinds of problems.

Quote

And there are several posibilities to improve the game for a new player beyond the MM. A general chat for example, so they can ask questions while in the mechlab (what should i buy as a first mech?) and make new friends (MWO is a lonely place when you start playing). Or a mentor system so the veterans can pass their knowledge to newbies.

All of which would be undermined by adding repair & rearm back.

RAM, on 24 August 2016 - 05:46 PM, said:

No need to apologize for being wrong. Not to mention that most of your example is out dated and incorrect in back then.

R&R certainly could be better, but it did work.

Wow, I guess it worked so well that there's no need to explain how it did indeed work well, and obviously all arguments to the contrary are automatically wrong.

[Kmieciu]

There is a repair and rearm system in Warthunder so I know exactly how it can work when it's made by competent developers.
And still I would rather not have one.

[invernomuto]

Kmieciu, on 25 August 2016 - 12:30 AM, said:

There is a repair and rearm system in Warthunder so I know exactly how it can work when it's made by competent developers.
And still I would rather not have one.

On the other hand, in a plane sim you can have the ability to disengage and land on your base if you're damaged. Here in MWO this possibility does not exist with current gamemodes. Usually you lose because your team is destroyed. QP battles are fast and usually last 8-10 minutes max.
PGI could introduce some "exit zones" (eg, if you go out of the map you're picked up by a dropship after a while) but, IMHO a "realistic" R&R system (i.e based on current prices for replacing destroyed component and ammos) would make players (expecially new ones) very afraid of fighting each other and it would be bad from a gameplay point of view, with people escaping to save C-Bills after 4-5 minutes because the match is already decided.

Edited by invernomuto, 25 August 2016 - 01:52 AM.

[FalconerGray]

Sorry if I've missed it, but no mention of it often being more profitable for players to run out of bounds and suicide at the very start of ever match?